Almost every current human endeavor from transportation, to manufacturing, to plastics, and
especially food production is inextricably intertwined with oil and natural gas supplies.
Commercial food production is oil powered. All pesticides are petroleum based, and all
commercial fertilizers are ammonia based. Ammonia is produced from natural gas.

In 100 years mankind has used half of all the oil on the planet.

At the current rate there would be only enough oil to sustain the
planet for another 35 years under the best of scenarios. But the oil that remains is going to
be increasingly expensive to produce. [...] Oil price spikes invariably lead to recession.
The world's economy is based upon the sale of products that are either made
from oil or which need hydrocarbon energy (including natural gas) to operate, either via
internal combustion or via electricity.

Different regions of the world peak in oil production at different times. The U.S. peaked in
the early-1970s. Europe, Russia and the North Sea have also peaked. However the OPEC nations of
the Middle East peak last. Within a few years they -- or whoever controls them -- will be in
effective control of the world oil economy, and, in essence, of human civilization as a whole.
Two of the nations that will peak last are Saudi Arabia and Iraq, both of which will not peak
until the middle of the next decade. Saudi Arabia contains 25 percent of all the oil on the
planet. Iraq contains 11 percent of all the oil on the planet.

McDonalds
has been at the forefront of the fast food revolution and been responsible for the changing of
local diets and taking a heavy subsidy from governments for 'training' teenagers to fry chips.
They have also somehow been cultural ambassadors for the west, entering previously hostile
countries before governments officially dare. Watch the rising rates of obesity that follow.

2004-01-19: Time Is Running Out

Take a look at the U.S. National Debt Clock.
How long can the rest of the world ignore the fact that
the U.S. owes it so much money, a debt that is spiralling out of control?
The emergence of
China as a new
world superpower could well
turn the tables.

"China and Japan now own 41% of the monetary system in the U.S." - Sean Trainor

While we applaud President Bush's recent
decision to
put humans on the Moon
and ultimately Mars,
furthering the
advancement of
space science, it is clearly nothing more than a pre-election campaign dream which
the nation can in no way afford. How can a spacecraft make it off the ground with such a
heavy
burden around the country's neck? I mean, he could promise to send people to
investigate
Uranus,
but it means nothing without the ability to pay. And that is precisely what
President Bush does not have.

Saddam Hussein was portrayed
by the media as a monster; it is hard to know how much of the propaganda to believe,
but he was undoubtedly not a good man to lead a country (understatement!),
and people I know who have lived in
Iraq
are glad to see the country rid of him. After a brutal invasion without United Nations support, which made me
ashamed to be
British,
and is now turning very messy,
the sad man
Hussein was
eventually caught,
yet Osama Bin Laden,
the man believed responsible for the
September 11th
hijackings (and the reason for invading Afghanistan),
is still a
free man.